The Bathing Women

The hallway of the clinic at People’s Hospital was noisy chaos. A draft of chokingly sweet fish smell, mixed with the unhealthy breath of the waiting patients, made Wu almost leave a few times. Finally the registrar nurse called out her number. Just as she sat down in front of the doctor, an old fellow from the countryside squeezed in, saying, “Doctor, you can’t fool us country folk. I walked over a hundred li to come to your hospital, and you give me a ten-cent prescription? Can ten cents treat an illness? You people tell me, isn’t this a con?” He yammered on, pestering the doctor for a more expensive medicine, demanding and pleading until the doctor had no choice but to rewrite his prescription.

“Next, please. Name?” the doctor said without raising his head. Wu gave her name and the doctor lifted his head, taking a look at Wu and then listening to her complaint. She didn’t know why, but she felt a little nervous, and gave the account of her symptoms in a dry and hesitant way. She seemed to have some difficulty meeting the doctor’s direct gaze, although she knew it was just his professional manner. He was a man of about her age, with a clean, long, thin face under a clean white cap. His eyes were small and very dark, and when he stared at her with his small, dark eyes, they seemed to be bouncing over her face like lead shot. Like most doctors, he made no small talk. He listened to Wu’s heartbeat, ordered several laboratory tests for her, routine tests like blood sugar and fat levels, ECG, etc., and he also asked her to get an X-ray of her neck at the radiology department.

Some test results came back the same day and some wouldn’t be ready until the next. So, the following day, Wu returned to People’s Hospital. She registered at internal medicine first, collected all the test results, and then waited quietly to see Dr. Tang—she had learned from the forms that the doctor’s family name was Tang.

When she sat across from him again, she immediately sensed on her face the bouncing of his lead-shot eyes. She handed her test reports to him; he buried himself in them for a while, then looked up and said, “You can set your mind at ease. You’re very healthy. There is nothing wrong with you. I thought you might have cervical vertebra disease or a heart problem, but I can assure you now that there is nothing wrong with you.”

What was he talking about? she thought. Was he saying that she wasn’t sick at all? If she wasn’t sick, why would she come to the hospital? If she wasn’t sick, how was it possible for her to leave the Reed River Farm? That’s right, leave the Reed River Farm. Just then Wu at last completely understood her heart’s desire: to leave the Reed River Farm. She really didn’t want to go back to that place, so she had to be sick, and it was impossible that she was not sick.

“It’s impossible,” she said, and stood up, forgetting herself a little.

Gesturing for her to sit down, he asked, somewhat puzzled, “Why don’t you want yourself to be healthy?”

“Because I’m not healthy. I’m sick.” She sat down, but insisted on her opinion.

“The problem is that you’re not sick.” He took another look through the stack of test results, along with the ECG report and neck X-rays. “Your symptoms might be mental in origin, caused by excessive nervousness.”

“I’m not nervous and I was never nervous.” Wu contradicted Dr. Tang again.

“But your current state is a manifestation of nervousness,” Dr. Tang said.

She then told Dr. Tang again that it was not nervousness but some disease. “It is really a disease.” She realized she had already begun to act a little irrationally. Her confrontation with the doctor not only didn’t convince the doctor, it didn’t convince her, either.

Dr. Tang gave a helpless smile. “Certainly, mental nervousness can be an illness, a condition. But as a doctor of internal medicine, I have no authority to give a diagnosis in this matter. I can only … I can only …”

His conclusion brought her up from the chair again. She began to ramble and repeat herself like a gabby old woman. “I’m not only sick, I also have two children. They’re so small. My husband and I both work on the farm and can’t take care of them at all. You know the Reed River Farm, quite far away from Fuan. Ordinarily we can’t come back. My two daughters, they … they … because …” At this point she suddenly leaned her face in to Dr. Tang’s and lowered her voice, desperately whispering, “You can’t … you can’t …” The next thing she felt was the spinning of the sky and earth. Her dizziness came to her rescue just in time and she lost consciousness.

She was hospitalized in the internal medicine ward and Dr. Tang was the physician in charge.

The first thing that came to her mind after she woke was actually Dr. Tang’s small, dark eyes. She also remembered her whispered pleading before she fainted—it was a sort of pleading, and how could she have spoken in that whispering voice to a strange man? She could explain it as her fear of being overheard by others in the clinic, but then, wasn’t she afraid this strange man would throw a woman who tried to fake an illness out of the hospital, or report her to her work unit? Then, during the Cultural Revolution, doctors also basically took on the responsibility of monitoring patients’ thoughts and consciousness. She was afraid, but maybe she was willing to risk her life to win over with whispers this man who controlled her fate. Her dizziness had rescued her in the end. Coming from a woman who might faint at any time, no matter how pitiful and helpless compared to an earthshaking howl, those eerie, frail whispers still hinted at things, either serious or playful, and offered vague temptations. Maybe she hadn’t at all meant to stir up hints of temptation around her, but it was the hints of temptation that stirred her.

As she lay on the white bed of the internal medicine ward, her body never felt healthier. She told Tiao and Fan later that she was so healthy because of the superb nutrition she received as a child: fish oil, calcium, vitamins … the fish oil was imported from Germany and her grandmother forced her to pinch her nose and take it. Tiao looked at her face carefully and asked, Why are you still dizzy, then?

Lying on the white bed of the internal medicine ward, she also had a feeling that she had been adopted—Dr. Tang adopted her, keeping her far away from the Reed River Farm, far away from the brick factory, and far from the revolution. Revolution, that was her required course of study at the farm every day. Chairman Mao’s quotations about revolution were to be memorized every day; they were also made into songs, which Wu had already learned by heart and could sing from start to finish: “A revolution is not inviting friends to dine, not writing, not painting, or needlepoint; never so refined, so calm and polite, so mild and moderate, well-mannered and generous. A revolution is an uprising, violence with which one class overthrows another.”

Revolution is violence. Violence. Wu temporarily left the violence far behind. She longed to see the concentrated, calm dark eyes of Dr. Tang; she longed to have him extend the cold little stethoscope to her chest …

One night when he was on duty, she felt the dizziness again and rang the bell. So he came to her room, where Wu was the only resident for the time being, though there were four beds. She never asked Dr. Tang later whether he made the arrangements deliberately or it just happened that there were no other patients. It was late at night then. He turned on the light and leaned over to ask her what was wrong and where she felt the discomfort. She saw that pair of small dark eyes again. She turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, saying it was her heart that pained her. He took out his stethoscope—she could sense that he had taken it out. He extended it toward her and when that ice-cold thing touched her flesh and pressed down over her heart, she reached up her hand and pressed down on his hand—the hand that held the stethoscope—and then she turned off the light.

In the dark they remained locked like this for a long time, as if their breathing had also stopped. That hand of his, pressed down by hers, remained motionless, although he suspected motionlessness was not what she had in mind for him. She didn’t move, either, only the heart beneath their overlapped hands raced wildly. They remained motionless, as if each was feeling out the other: Is he going to call a nurse? Is she suddenly going to scream? They grappled and stalled, as if each were waiting for the other to make the first move, whether it was to attack or to surrender.

Her palm began to sweat, and the sweat of her palm wet the back of his hand. Her body started to heave in the dark because a hot current was surging and circulating in her lower belly, burning down right between her legs. She began to repeat to him the whispers of the other day in the clinic. Her voice grew quieter and more indistinct, accompanied by wild panting. The panting clearly had some elements of performance about it and was also mixed with some reluctant sighing. She repeated her whispers: “You can’t … you can’t … you can’t …” He didn’t know if she was saying that he couldn’t withdraw his hand or that he couldn’t go further. But just then he pulled his stethoscope free, tossed it aside, and put his hands on her breasts, calmly and with resolve.

When he pressed his long, lean body on her ample body, she suddenly felt an unprecedented sense of liberation. Yes, liberation, and she didn’t feel guilty at all. Only then was she convinced that she would truly be adopted by Dr. Tang. The floodgate to her pure desire was thrown open. She clutched his waist with her hands, and she coiled her legs high, hooking her feet tightly around his hips. She didn’t stop and didn’t allow him to stop. Still in motion, she took a pillow and put it under her hips. She wanted him to go deeper and deeper. Until maybe it wasn’t about going deeper anymore; it was about going through her entire body, to pierce her body entirely.

3

The night arrived like this: right in the middle of her boredom and brazen anticipation. She inhaled the smell of the laundry room from the pillow, along with the special smell of disinfectant from the hospital ward … laundry room and disinfectant. A healthy woman is put into an isolated room and the mixture of these two smells produces a crazy arousal in parts of her body.

At this time, in this moment, Wu was suppressing her excitement, waiting in the dark. The night before, as he was leaving her room, Dr. Tang told her that maybe she should have rheumatic heart disease. He would provide her certification of the diagnosis and a note for sick leave, a note that would allow her to rest for a month, which was the longest time that a physician in charge at People’s Hospital could prescribe. She didn’t want to concentrate on the thought that this was what she was waiting for, this note that would allow her to stay at Fuan and at home; that would make her seem degraded. The implication of exchange was all too obvious. She preferred to think she was waiting for the fulfillment of her sexual desire. She had experienced a feeling with him that she had never felt before. It seemed to be a kind of pleasure brought on by a nervousness and secrecy, and also a kind of submission to fate as thorough as if she were falling into an abyss.

He arrived, and when he put the note into her hand, she turned off the light again. This time she had the urge to caress him; it might be the female’s most primitive physical expression of gratitude. She stroked his hair and his face, which she was not really familiar with; she lay down on him and looked for his lips. She hadn’t touched his lips and he hadn’t touched hers, either. She discovered he didn’t like her to get near his face. When her hair brushed the corner of his mouth, he reached out his hands to hold her head, as if to avoid her. He held her head and pushed it all the way down, down. Her head, mouth, and face slipped further and further down, over his chest and stomach, then to that thicket of thorns, dense and a little scratchy. She didn’t remember when he left the room. When she calmed down and was about to wipe her body, she noticed that she was still clutching the sick leave note.

She left the hospital and returned home. She announced to the sisters that she could stay at home for a month, a month. After she said that, she lay back on her bed. She remembered she had rheumatic heart disease, so she needed to lie in bed. She leaned back against that big wide feather pillow and wrote separate letters to Yixun and to the farm leader, enclosing the certificate of diagnosis and the sick leave note. She asked Tiao to go out to post the letters for her. Tiao held the letters and asked her, “Mum, what do you want to eat?”

What do I want to eat? Wu listened to Tiao’s question and looked at her eleven-year-old daughter. The question obviously showed her daughter’s concern for her, and it was unusual for a girl at such a young age to know how to take care of people, but the closeness between mother and daughter also seemed to be missing. Tiao never played cute with her, nor did she ever throw tantrums. And Wu never knew what was in Tiao’s small head. Fan, who had just turned six, seemed to be under her older sister’s influence. She stood next to Tiao and asked Wu in an adult way, “Mum, what do you want to eat?” As if she could cook anything her mum wanted to eat. Looking at her daughters, for a moment Wu felt like she had become a guest in the house, and the two sisters were the hosts. But she still gave serious thought to what she wanted to eat. She said, “Mum wants to eat fish.”

Tiao posted the letter at the post office, then went to the grocery store and bought a big live carp. The grocer tied the fish’s mouth shut with a string of iris grass and handed it over to Tiao. She always remembered the price of that carp: ninety-five cents. She would forget many things over the years but not the ninety-five-cent carp. Her mood at the time was also memorable: she walked home carrying the swinging fish, straining a little bit, but feeling happy, confident, and proud. She liked having Wu back to prop up the family; she also wanted Wu to see that Tiao was not an ordinary girl in her parents’ absence. She wasn’t only capable of buying things, but she also knew how to cook them. She returned home, put the fish in the sink, removed the scales, cut open the belly, rinsed the cavity, drained it, picked up the cleaver and made diagonal cuts on the fish’s body, then patted a thin layer of cornstarch onto the fish and fried it … In the end she produced a braised carp and took it to Wu. Her little face was red from the heat of the greasy smoke, and the sweat made her fringe stick to her forehead; the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up, revealing her tiny arms.

Fan ran around and cheered; she was proud of her older sister. She also took the opportunity to show off her own cooking tips, saying, “Mum, do you know what to do if you accidentally break the fish’s gallbladder when you’re cleaning it? You pour some white wine right away into the fish belly …”

Tiao’s braised carp took Wu by surprise. She felt a lump in her throat, yes, a lump, and then she began to cry. It was the first time she had cried since getting home; the tears came from the kind of guilt that can’t be eased with an apology. She realized then that she hadn’t asked about the two children’s lives since she came home, how school was, what they ate every day, and whether they were being bullied or not. She really wanted to hold them to her breast and hug them tightly, but she didn’t seem able to. Not every mother is capable of loving her child, although every child in the world longs to be loved. Not every mother can give off the maternal glow, although every child in the world longs to be bathed in it. Tiao always guarded herself against possible closeness with Wu, including the occasions when her mother cried. When tears threatened to bring them closer to one another, Tiao got embarrassed. This would be their regret, as mother and daughter, all their lives: they almost never could laugh or cry at the same time; either the mother was half a beat slower, or the other way around. That was why Wu’s tears now couldn’t move and comfort Tiao; Tiao just tried her hardest simply to understand her mother, and felt proud of herself for the effort.

They began to eat the fish. Wu said, “I’m going to knit a jumper for each of you.” She said it eagerly, as if knitting jumpers were another form of embrace. She couldn’t hug them, so she was going to knit for them. Tiao said, “Knit one for Fan first. Rose is the prettiest colour, isn’t it, Fan?”

Fan said, “Rose is the prettiest colour and it’s the only colour I want.” This loyalty of hers to Tiao, this enthusiastic response, made Tiao feel like it had been a dream whenever she recalled it later. Next, as if to go along with the pleasant atmosphere, Wu talked about her plan to invite a guest over for dinner. She said that during her stay in hospital, she had been really fortunate to have Dr. Tang. So, to express her gratitude, she wanted to invite him over for dinner. She said, “You’re both young and don’t know how hard it is to see a doctor.” If there hadn’t been this Dr. Tang, her life might have been in danger, not to mention the sick leave. She deliberately said the words “sick leave” softly, under her breath, but Tiao still heard her. If there hadn’t been this sick leave, she wouldn’t be able to stay at home for a month. Tiao said she didn’t understand. “Didn’t you get the sick leave because you were sick? Why was it because of the doctor that you got the sick leave?”

Wu said, “Not every patient could get permission to rest. To put it simply, Dr. Tang is important and someone we should thank.”

So they thanked him. It was a Sunday and Wu broke her routine and got up early. She asked Tiao to help her in the kitchen and was busy for almost an entire morning. She hadn’t cooked for a long time and was out of practice, and her sense about salt, sugar, soy sauce, and MSG was off. She was intimidated by the kitchen, the way she was by the Reed River Farm. But as she bustled around, the one tiny advantage of the Reed River Farm occurred to her: they didn’t need to cook there; they ate in the canteen. She made several odd-looking dishes, asking Tiao over and over again where the seasonings were. Spicy soy sauce and fennel—she had completely forgotten where they were. Finally, she planned to make a dessert: grilled miniature snowballs. She mentioned it to Tiao and Tiao said, “That’s my dad’s dish. No one knows how to make it when he’s not home.”

“Why can’t we make it? Aren’t fresh milk, eggs, and sugar all we need?”

“We also need vanilla and citric acid. Without citric acid, milk will stay liquid. It won’t become miniature snowballs.”

Wu looked at Tiao with surprise and asked, “How do you know?”

“I’ve seen Dad make it.”

Wu said, “Find citric acid for me and I’ll make grilled miniature snowballs.”

“We don’t have citric acid.”

Wu believed Tiao, but she had a vague feeling that Tiao wanted to keep the recipe for miniature snowballs to herself.

Later, candied apple was substituted for grilled snowballs. Tiao despised this dish from the bottom of her heart. She had never liked any kind of “candied” dish, thinking it was neither hygienic nor civilized for people to pull out the apples with their chopsticks, trailing syrupy tangled candied strings, and then everyone dipping them into the same bowl of cold water, meanwhile faking the same amazed and satisfied expressions as they ate. Besides, what was so amazing and satisfying about eating sugarcoated apple? Furthermore, when Wu made candied apple, she always overdid the sugar, so there weren’t any sugar strings to be pulled no matter how hard you tried. There were just gooey pieces and chunks that would stick to your teeth and palate. Tiao would keep licking the roof of her mouth with her tongue and sometimes had to put her fingers into her mouth to pry the stuff free. However, it passed as a dessert. With the way Wu cooked, who could blame Tiao for telling her that they didn’t have citric acid?

When the dinner was ready, Wu began changing her clothes, going back and forth between the few outfits she had, whose styles were almost all the same, but in different colours like grey, green, blue, etc. But Wu looked good, her face glowing with excitement. She kept looking at herself in the mirror and also lowered her head and asked Tiao to smell her hair. “Do you think my hair smells of grease? Smell it again. Maybe I should wash my hair.”

Tiao sniffed at Wu’s hair and smelled a little grease smoke, but wasn’t in a hurry to say anything. She asked Wu suddenly, “Is Dr. Tang a man or a woman?” Wu was startled for a moment and then straightened her back, her hair falling over half of her face. She said, “It’s … it’s uncle. You should call him uncle. What’s the matter?” “Nothing,” Tiao said. For some reason she didn’t want to tell Wu that her hair smelled of grease smoke; she didn’t want Wu to wash her hair one more time for this thank-you dinner. She felt Wu had spent too much time preparing for the dinner and was taking it too seriously. She had never seen her mother so serious about anything, including Tiao’s and Fan’s business. Wu ignored Tiao’s reservations and washed her hair once more, as if she’d known that Tiao hadn’t told the truth. Her dark, shiny hair matched her fresh, lustrous face—with the two soft, delicate, faultless eyebrows—it all looked very beautiful to Tiao, but she never said so to Wu.

Dr. Tang arrived, a very reserved man speaking perfect Beijing dialect. He didn’t have his white cap on, so it was the first time that Wu had seen his hair, brownish hair that made his small dark eyes look even darker. They exchanged some courtesies and sat down to dinner. Wu told Tiao and Fan to call him uncle, but Tiao insisted on calling him Dr. Tang and Fan followed her sister’s lead. Fan had a white plastic set of doctor toys, which included a syringe, a stethoscope, and a “kidney tray” for surgery. She showed these toys to Dr. Tang and said with regret that she didn’t have a thermometer, for which she often had to substitute a popsicle stick. If she found someone with a fever, she would give that person a shot. “If you have a fever, you need a shot, right, Dr. Tang?” She repeated the words “have a fever” in a high-pitched voice; for her all illness could be summed up in the words “have a fever.”

Have a fever.

Dr. Tang and Wu talked for a long time after dinner. He handed Wu a hardback copy of The Family Medical Encyclopedia and told her that there was a chapter dedicated to rheumatic heart disease. When Wu took the book from him, she noticed a loose thread on one of the sleeves of his jumper. She thought, why would she be so quick to tell Tiao and Fan that she was going to knit jumpers for them?

She bought a pure light grey woollen yarn and started to knit a jumper, leaning back against her pillow. She usually knitted during the daytime, after Tiao went to school, and also in the evening, after Tiao and Fan fell asleep. That made her look a little underhanded and evasive because she didn’t want her daughters to see her knit this jumper. But in a simple home like theirs, where could she hide it? Tiao eventually found the light grey half-finished item.